The UpTake: Mark Montgomery has already upended Nashville's music scene. So what does he do for a second act? How about launching something that's half business accelerator and half think tank?

It’s not yet noon on a Monday, but Mark Montgomery, one of Nashville’s most notorious tech entrepreneurs, is sitting behind a bottle of rum, regarding it as if nothing else mattered — which, at this moment in Montgomery’s professional life, may be true.

It may seem unlikely that Montgomery’s career has come to this: a bottle of 80-proof Barbados light rum. This is the man, after all, who turned Nashville’s music industry upside down with Echomusic, a digital marketing and distribution company that came of age in a post-Napster world. While Music Row was scrambling to put an end to digital downloads, Montgomery had figured out a way to monetize music on the Internet.

But that bottle of rum is a key signpost in Montgomery’s next commercial undertaking. It’s half think tank, half business incubator, and it defies easy description but has a long list of Nashville’s power players already thrilling over — and investing in — its prospects.

The company’s split personality is symbolic of its founder, who is creative and calculating. The unabashed Montgomery has been both a polarizing and uniting figure in Nashville’s music and technology scenes. His next venture is no exception.

The very name of Montgomery’s new enterprise is characteristically novel. Dubbed FLO{thinkery}, its mission, according to the company’s tagline — as expressed by Montgomery — is, “We do cool shit with smart people, or smart shit with cool people.”

So, what does FLO actually do? In short, it aims to build companies and brands for big audiences. With 11 employees, the company operates two units. One side of the house is an investment firm and business incubator, where the team works with startups in the tech, music and entertainment spaces. On the other side, FLO partners with musicians to launch products and brands.

“For me, personally, I was looking for something big,” Montgomery said of FLO, which he launched in 2011. “I wanted to do something that had a substantial market impact. … Taking some venture money and running one company just didn’t seem that exciting. I’d already done it.”

Montgomery believes FLO and the companies it builds can elevate Nashville to a new tier, competing with cities like Los Angeles, New York and Seattle, where the marriage of tech and the entertainment business is fundamental. Behind his blue jeans, T-shirts and dangling goatee, Montgomery is an ambitious businessman who believes the higher the tide in Nashville, the greater the opportunity for those who can swim.

And he’s confident he can swim.

It’s too soon to know if Montgomery’s FLO will achieve what he hopes. But a host of Nashville’s most powerful business leaders have put their money — the company is valued in the tens of millions — and names behind the venture as shareholders and paid advisers.

“They are bright, smart, aggressive people,” said Ingram Content Group CEO John Ingram, who is a shareholder in FLO. “They have fun, but they are also deadly serious about what they are doing. I think that makes it attractive.”

Creating companies

And that’s where the rum comes in.

It’s called Blue Chair Bay, and it’s the first artist-powered brand FLO has launched. The creative director and financial backer is country music superstar Kenny Chesney. Montgomery won’t disclose the exact figure, but FLO has a stake in the company’s success.

“When you look at Kenny, the rum is perfect for what he actually does, and it enhances his overall brand,” Montgomery said. “He sells escape. He doesn’t sell music anymore. … He sells a lifestyle.”

The bottle that Montgomery is studying is nearly empty, indicative of how popular the brand became in the marketplace. The rum launched in May and met its first-year sales projections — 25,000 units — in seven weeks. The rum is on sale in 40 states, including Tennessee, with plans to be nationwide by March 2014.

As successful as Blue Chair Bay has been, Montgomery anticipates FLO’s business incubator will be the most successful.

The first two startups to emerge from that half of FLO’s business are a YouTube music network called Made In and a data company called Mothership. One targets consumers, while the other is aimed at businesses.

Montgomery believes both companies are indicative of where the music, television and entertainment industries are headed — and both can be highly profitable, which means eventually commanding an audience with buyers.

“The reality is Nashville has the potential to be the epicenter of the new music business if we choose to take up that mantle. We’re choosing to take up that mantle,” he said. “A lot of times when you’re a pioneer, you end up with arrows in your back, but that’s part of the price of being the pioneer. The [music] business is not in transition, the business has transitioned. … The question is what are we going to do about it.”

This is an excerpt from a story that originally appeared in the Nashville Business Journal. For the full story, click here.

E.J. Boyer covers the health care industry and legal affairs for the Nashville Business Journal.

SHARE THIS STORY

Comments

If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.